Well when this time comes around every year I began to have thoughts of the direction that I want to go in what I wanted to accomplish and what I want to do with the rest of my life. A lot of these thoughts entail religious practices and principles. One of my New Year’s resolutions this year was to get closer to Jesus in a real way and not talking about getting more religious of being bigger in some kind of religious institution but the actual mechanism of getting closer to Jesus. I think I must pay more attention to Jesus’ life and what he thought as he lived here on this earth and his actions here on earth and even now when he’s gone on to be our advocate in heaven. I want to think about this and is very difficult due to our way of thinking our mindset here. Around here we (and when I say we I certainly include myself) think about being more religious as going through the religious rituals and doing all the things that we should do to be a good member of the church equates to being close to Jesus. All these things are not bad within themselves but they surely do not make us worthy in God’s eyes. I guess that I need to step back and take a long look at my relationship with Jesus the Savior and see what I need to do to approach closer to him. I can study what he did when he was on earth and try to emulate him. I could be a disciple and after all the followers of Jesus were called desciples even before they were called Christians. And another think that comes to mind is to have a very fervent prayer life and talk to the Lord often and that way he will hear and tell me what I should do in my life of being a disciple.

Monday, August 29, 2011 — Starting off another week and another week passed but I hope I have used the week well and that I have nothing to worry about. This is the time everybody talks of ominous things but we can be glad that we’ve got a God in heaven and that he looks down and he sees things and he knows things. He does the best things for us. I heard a song the other day which has a phrase which says “He Doeth all things well.” Well, we’ve got to believe that and to live accordingly. We just praise his name and thank Him for all that he’s done for us and his having been so good to us up to this time. That brings to mind the old saying, “We don’t know what the future holds, but we certainly know who holds the future!”

I kind of made myself a promise what you would say middle of the year resolution that I would write more in my blog and say more things before I get to where I’m not able to say them. Perhaps, people don’t hear all my bloviating and things like that but I had do have to get it out of my system so it serves a purpose even if no one reads it appears editing about it. Oh well, his having a lot of fun anyway. So until next time will sign off from beautiful downtown coffee springs and say 73 for the day. bye-bye.

When we hear people talking about the advancements in the church today lots of times, unfortunately we hear them talking about larger buildings, bigger staff growing our congregation and increasing our plant and our campus. I can’t even stand the phrase “growing the congregation” as good grammar much less being spiritual. Are these things that Jesus would be concerned with. When I read the Gospels I don’t read about him emphasizing such things as these. He makes statements like “love one another”, “draw nigh unto God”, and through the apostle John he makes this statement, “Love not the world neither the things that are in the world…,” Now these things are not the material things that I started out listing at the top of this post. I know that the church is made up of people as individuals and their people are social beings so they do have to have some structure in which to exist as an organization. However I think many times the church today, only thinks about the material things and leaves out the spiritual.

On my first post here I put it in the wrong blog but I will write some more to go here. I named it my “Religious Blog” but only did that for want of the right words. I am more interested in spirituality and rightuousness than religion. In fact if abused “Religion” can be an evil thing and we do in fact see many evil things being done in the name of religion in the world these days. Also we don’t have to look beyond our own back yard becasuse some religions that claim to be christian can and have been very evil. But lets not call all christian religions evil just because some are. I have reached the point in my life when I am not interested in playing games. I am more interested in becoming more spiritual and rightious by learning how to be more like Jesus. I think in lots of churches these days it is an 80/10 percent situation of spiritual things versus secular. Sometimes all that people think about is material things. I am interested in getting your ideas on how to draw closer to Jesus, to learn to know him better, not just know about him and how to live my remaining days honoring him and in a close relationship with him. \